In the manufacture of pneumatic tires and also wheels and rims for pneumatic tires, it is exceedingly difficult if not impossible to produce a tire, a wheel, or the combination thereof in perfect rotational balance. As known, when out of balance, such a tire, wheel, or combination thereof, vibrates excessively upon rotation and can cause damage to adjacent, coupled-to and/or related components. Moreover, when the tire and wheel are coupled to a moving vehicle such as a passenger car, the vibration can be uncomfortable to an occupant of the vehicle.
Accordingly, and as is known, such tire, wheel, or combination thereof is balanced by appropriately applying one or more counter-balancing weights to compensate for a measured imbalance. Typically, although by no means absolute, in the case where a tire is mounted to a wheel of a vehicle, the wheel includes a circumferential flange or lip at a rim on either axial side thereof and a weight of appropriate mass is applied at each flange at an appropriate circumferential location thereof. Methods of measuring imbalance and determining where to apply the counter-balancing weights are generally known to the relevant public and therefore need not be described herein.
Heretofore, such a counter-balancing weight for a vehicle has been constructed to have a body forming the majority of the mass of the weight and a clip by which the body is secured to the flange of a wheel, where the clip is attached to the body by any of several attaching mechanisms. For example, the clip may be swaged to a face of the body or affixed to a face of the body by way of one or more screws, rivets, expansion bolts, or the like. Additionally, the body may be formed from a molten material such as lead or the like around a clip formed from sheet steel or the like.
Notably, the clip is typically formed by appropriate bending of a piece of sheet steel or the like into a springed shape that defines a compartment within which is received the aforementioned flange of the wheel. In mounting such a formed clip to such a flange, contact is made with the flange at lateral edges of the clip, among other locations. As may be appreciated, such lateral contacting edges are relatively sharp and therefore tend to scratch or otherwise mar such flange as such clip is mounted thereto and also removed therefrom.
While such scratching or marring is generally minimal and not especially destructive to the flange and wheel, such scratching or marring can nevertheless remove a protective coating from the flange and wheel and allow water to penetrate thereinto, which of course can lead to rusting or other corrosion and subsequent decomposition and failure of the wheel. Moreover, if the flange and wheel is especially decorative, such as for example by being constructed to include a chrome surface, the scratching or marring of such decorative flange and wheel is especially unwanted and to be avoided.
Accordingly, a need exists for a wheel balancing weight with a clip and a body, where the clip is constructed in such a manner so as to minimize or avoid scratching or marring the flange of a wheel when the clip is mounted thereto and removed therefrom. More particularly, a need exists for such a wheel balancing weight where the clip thereof is formed so as to avoid contacting the flange of the wheel at lateral edges of such clip. Still more particularly, a need exists for such a wheel balancing weight where the clip includes a hump or the like extending into the compartment thereof such that contact with the flange occurs at such hump rather than at the lateral edges of such clip.